[Ieee_vis] TTK 1.2.0 is out!

[Julien Tierny]

Dear colleagues,

(sorry for cross-posting) 

After a year of intense development, we're excited to announce the release of the version 1.2.0 of the Topology ToolKit (TTK, https://topology-tool-kit.github.io/).

This new version includes several new features:

1) New backends for Persistence Diagram computation:
 a) The classical "Pair-Cells" backend: a reference textbook implementation based on the "Computational Topology" chapter by Afra Zomorodian ("Algorithms and Theory of Computation Handbook", 2nd Edition)
 b) The Discrete Morse Sandwich backend (now default): a new algorithm based on Discrete Morse theory, with identical outputs to the above classical backend, but with orders of magnitude speedups (https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.13932)

2) Distances between merge trees:
 a) Deformation-based Edit Distance (https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.05850)
 b) Branch Decomposition-Independent Edit Distance (https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.02919), 
 c) Wasserstein Distance (https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.07789),
 d) Edit Distance (https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.08511)

3) Principal geodesic analysis on the Wasserstein metric space of persistence diagrams and merge trees (https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.10960)

4) Fast Morse-Smale complex segmentation (https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.15491)

Check out the ChangeLog for more details:
https://github.com/topology-tool-kit/ttk/blob/dev/ChangeLog.md

For detailed usage examples, please checkout the new "TTK Online Example Database", which includes multiple data analysis pipelines (with screenshots, descriptions, command line and python scripts to reproduce the examples, as well as pointers to the developer documentation):
https://topology-tool-kit.github.io/examples/

### About 

The Topology ToolKit (TTK) is an open-source library and software collection for topological data analysis and visualization.

TTK can handle scalar data defined either on regular grids or triangulations, in 1D, 2D, 3D, or more. It provides a substantial collection of generic, efficient and robust implementations of key algorithms in topological data analysis. It includes:
 · For scalar data: critical points, integral lines, persistence diagrams, persistence curves, merge trees, contour trees, Reeb graphs, Morse-Smale complexes, topological simplification, topology-aware compression, harmonic design;
 · For bivariate scalar data: fibers, fiber surfaces, continuous scatterplots, Jacobi sets, Reeb spaces;
 · For uncertain scalar data: mandatory critical points;
 · For ensemble scalar data: Bottleneck and Wasserstein distances between persistence diagrams (exact Munkres-based computation or fast Auction-based approximation), Wasserstein barycenters and clusters of persistence diagrams (fast progressive algorithms) and merge trees, principal geodesic analysis of persistence diagrams and merge trees, distance matrices (Lp norm, Wasserstein distances), contour tree alignment;
 · For time-varying scalar data: critical point tracking, nested tracking graphs;
 · For high-dimensional / point cloud data: dimension reduction, persistence-based clustering, persistent cycle extraction;
 · and more!
If you need to robustly analyze your data, you may want to use TTK.
* Check out the new TTK Online Example Database:
https://topology-tool-kit.github.io/examples/index.html

TTK makes topological data analysis accessible to end users thanks to easy-to-use plugins for the data analysis and visualization application ParaView. Thanks to ParaView, TTK supports a variety of input data formats.
* Check out our video tutorials to see TTK in action:
https://topology-tool-kit.github.io/tutorials.html

TTK is written in C++ but comes with a variety of bindings (VTK/C++, Python) and standalone command-line programs. It is modular and easy to extend. We have specifically developed it such that you can easily write your own data analysis tools as TTK modules.
* Check out our developer documentation:
https://topology-tool-kit.github.io/documentation.html

TTK is open-source (BSD license). You can use it at your convenience, for open-source or proprietary projects. You are also welcome to contribute.
* Check out our contribution page:
https://topology-tool-kit.github.io/contribute.html

* To try out TTK, checkout our installation instructions:
https://topology-tool-kit.github.io/installation.html

If you have questions, need support regarding the usage of TTK, or just want to provide feedback, thanks for sending us an email at topology.tool.kit at gmail.com

We hope you'll enjoy TTK!
-- 
Dr Julien Tierny
CNRS Researcher
Sorbonne Universite
https://julien-tierny.github.io/